The present invention relates to a near-field optical head, a manufacturing method of the near-field optical head, and an optical recording/readout system using the near-field optical head.
Recently, an optical recording using near-field light has received attention as a method for making an optical disc device extremely dense. For example, the following experimental results were reported in Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 61, No. 2, pp. 142-144, 1992: a probe was made by shaving the top of an optical fiber into a cone and by coating it with metal except for several tens nm of the top and was mounted on a precision actuator using a piezo device, and a recording mark of 60 nm in diameter was recorded or read out on or from a platinum/cobalt multi-layer by controlling the position of the probe. In this case, a shear-force method applying an atomic force to the control of a gap between the probe is used and a recording medium and an areal density reached 45 gigabit/in.sup.2, which is about 20 times the present areal density. Further, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 3-171434, a method is disclosed wherein near-field light is excited by focusing light on a small pinhole by a lens and a gap between the small pinhole and a recording medium is controlled with the use of an atomic force generated between a cantilever having the small pinhole at the top thereof and the recording medium, and another method is disclosed wherein a slider which receives a light source, a lens and a small pinhole is arranged on a medium and is flown by air to control a gap between the small pinhole and the recording medium.